


what goes up

by ImBadWithWords



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Identity Reveal, Moral Dilemmas, Not Canon Compliant, Peter Parker Whump, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-06-27 00:44:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15674598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImBadWithWords/pseuds/ImBadWithWords
Summary: The newly reformed Avengers have pieced together a working relationship, with everything they had before the Sokovia Accords coming back in fits and starts. The addition of Spider-Man to their ranks has helped more than anyone anticipated. But when their youngest member is grievously injured during a battle, no one knows if it will bring them together or tear them apart.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at a multichap work!!! I'll try to update in a reasonable timeframe but can't promise anything because I am the slowest writer in existence. Characters are listed in the tags in the order I expect them to be most present, but things may change.
> 
> Also: there's nothing graphic in this chapter, but there's gonna be serious injuries and medical stuff in later chapters, so just be warned if you don't like reading those things. I'll include trigger warnings at the beginning each time if you want to read most of it and just skip over the graphic stuff.

Tony was getting impatient.

How could their team have gotten so out of practice so quickly? It was only their third mission together since rebuilding the Avengers, but _still_. Robot invasions were supposed to be easy; this half-baked attempt at tri-state domination should have brought them closer together rather than highlight the many, many ways in which they were divided.

Tony went high, zipping through the fingers of a giant robot hand so he could get a view of the whole battleground.

Robots—huge, clunky, and poorly-built—lumbered up and down several city streets, their massive waving arms clipping the sides of buildings and sending chunks of brick and cement falling to the ground. Citizens poured out of damaged buildings into the streets, only to realize they were safer inside.

Clint and Steve were on the ground, ushering the panicked crowds away from the danger. The rest of the Avengers focused on defeating the threat.

A robot a block away from Tony’s position smashed its hand through the top floor of an apartment building and Tony’s heart seized as debris flew toward a couple huddled on the sidewalk, recording the action. He rushed forward, realizing with a jolt he wouldn’t make it in time, unable to tear his eyes away—

A red and blue form swung down, barreling into both civilians and knocking them out of the way. The debris exploded against the pavement.

“You guys started the party without me?” a young voice piped up over the comms. Spidey threw out a webline and rocketed back into the sky. “I’m hurt.”

“We were just warming ‘em up for you, kid,” Sam said with a laugh.

“Aw, you _do_ care!” Spider-Man dropped down onto the roof of a car near Steve and crouched down to talk to him. Tony caught his words over the comm. “Hey, Cap, if you can get all the civilians past 18th I think I can web up a barrier to keep the robots from going deeper into the city.”

Cap nodded. “Alright, son. Guys, I want everyone not currently engaged to reroute and direct people past 18th. Sam, stay in the air to manage debris. Bucky, Nat, Clint, and I will sweep these buildings. Tony, Rhodey, Scott, keep any robots distracted and off our tail.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Tony said. He flew up, grabbing the attention of the robot closest to him and luring it away from where Spidey had already begun closing off the street. As he got above the line of buildings, he caught sight of the hulking machines a few roads over and swore.

“Hey, Spangles,” he said, “I think we need to do something about the Jumbo-Bots heading toward Stuyvesant Square. Suggestions?”

“Alright.” A pause while Steve considered. “Scott, Sam, head over to their location and either turn ‘em around or take ‘em down.”

“Got it, Cap,” Wilson responded.

“Whatever you say, Captain America!” Scott said. Tony rolled his eyes. His suit’s monitor caught a tiny figure hopping onto Falcon’s wingpack as Sam flew down the street.

Tony weaved through the legs of the robot behind him and caught a glimpse of Steve ushering civilians through a small gap in Spider-Man’s web wall.

“I think Spidey should go too,” he said. “He’s the best equipped for getting people out of the way safely.”

Another pause from Steve.

“Good idea,” he said eventually. “Spider-Man, meet them down there. But don’t try to engage the robots. Just make sure no one on the streets gets hurt.”

“Got it, Captain America, sir!” Peter’s enthusiasm crackled over the comms, voice slightly muffled by his mask, and Tony allowed himself a smile. “You can count on me!”

“Keep your distance, son,” Cap reminded him. He sounded somewhat amused. “These guys are a little bigger than Scott was.”

“Hey, if we’re comparing sizes here—” Scott cut himself off. “Hold on, how old is Spider-Kid again? Am I allowed to make that joke?”

“I’m old enough to kick your ass!” Peter yelled back and Tony couldn’t help but laugh.

“Would you just go stop the robots?” he huffed.

“It’s called multitasking, Mr. Stark!”

— — — — — — — —

 

He was just getting civilians out of the way. That was the only thing he was supposed to do. He was not supposed to be fighting the sixty-foot tall robots. He was strictly forbidden from fighting the sixty-foot tall robots.

But it was like a losing battle when he was fighting the symptoms and not the cause, herding people out of the splash zone rather than confronting the robots head on. Sam’s bullets weren’t doing much against their thick metal casing and Scott couldn’t find a safe entrypoint to start attacking the wiring. Chunks of concrete rained down to the pavement and Spidey couldn’t be everywhere at once.

“And I thought _I_ was clumsy!” he said as one of the bots grazed a fire escape and tore it from the building. Peter grabbed it with a web and yanked it toward him, dropping it on the roof of an apartment building. “Have you ever thought of taking up yoga? I hear it really helps with spacial awareness!”

“I’m almost positive these things aren’t sentient, kid,” Sam said, swooping down to shoot at the thing’s viewing sockets. “You really don’t have to talk to them.”

“Aw, c’mon, Falc, even these guys could use a friend!”

“Leave it to Spidey to try and make friends with the giant robots attacking the city,” Clint chuckled over the line.

“I happen to be a very personable guy, you know! Since when is it mandatory that superheroes have to be grumps?”

“It comes with age, punk,” Bucky said, and Peter groaned. A robot kicked a car into the air and he quickly hauled it back to the ground.

“I’m not _that_ much younger than most of you.”

“Oh yeah?,” Rhodey said. “And exactly how much younger would that be?”

“Hey! Are you trying to trick me into giving something away? That is a low move, Col. Rhodes, I expected better.” Peter tried to sound disappointed, but he was smiling.

“Me? Trick you? Never.”

“Uh-huh, that’s what I thought.”

Peter flipped into the air as a robot took a swipe at him. A window smashed where he had just been clinging, but a quick glance told him no one was on the sidewalk, so no big deal.

Except someone inside the building screamed.

“Oh, crap,” Peter breathed, twisting in midair so he could land on the robot’s shoulder and propel himself back toward the apartment. He stuck to the side of the brick building and started climbing up.

“Kid, everything okay?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s good,” Peter responded, nodding even though no one else was even in the vicinity. “I’ve got it. Can you keep the Iron Giant here distracted for a sec?”

“On it.”

Peter tumbled through the broken window and nicked his thigh on a shard of broken glass. He pressed a hand against the cut as he fell into a carpeted living room.

“Ow! Stupid, freakin’—”

“Spidey, you alright?” Tony demanded. Peter’s eyes widened and his hand flitted up to the comm in his ear.

“Yeah! Sorry, I keep forgetting you guys can hear me talking to myself.” He webbed over the small injury and pushed himself to his feet.

“Spider-Man, you need to tell us if you’re injured,” Captain Rogers said.

“I’m fine, I promise.” Peter glanced around the room. It was empty, so he moved onto the kitchen to try and find whoever had screamed. “Just a graze. Surprised me more than anything.”

“If you’re sure, son.”

The kitchen was also empty, so Peter went deeper into the apartment. He called out a couple times, but there was no answer. Jaw set, he moved into the building hallway to do a quick sweep of the whole floor and found a little girl huddled next to the door frame. Her eyes went huge when she saw him.

“Spider-Man...” she breathed. Peter crouched down a few feet from her.

“The one and only.” He looked back over his shoulder into the apartment and then back at the girl. “Where are your parents, kiddo?” She shrugged, eyes cast downward.

“I was with my brother,” she explained, voice hushed. “But he had to go to the basement to do laundry and he didn’t come back.” The girl’s lower lip started to wobble. Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m really scared,” she whispered. Peter’s heart twisted.

“Hey, hey, it’s gonna be okay.” He reached out a hand and let her crawl forward to take it. “We’re gonna get you somewhere safe and I’m gonna find your brother, okay? What’s your name?”

“Lacey,” she said. Something struck the outside of the building and the entire structure shook. Lacey screamed and Peter scooped her up in his arms to shield her from the plaster falling from the ceiling.

“You’re okay, it’s okay, I’ve got you,” he murmured as she buried her face into his shoulder. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.” The lights in the hallway flickered. They needed to find the brother and get out of there.

He stood, planting Lacey against his hip so he could free one arm. He strode down the hall to the stairwell and pushed open the door. They made their way down four flights of stairs before the power cut out, pitching them into a black basement. Peter bit back a groan.

“Who needs lights anyway?” he said.

“I do!” Lacey insisted, clinging to him. He rubbed a hand up and down her back in what he hoped was a soothing gesture, but this was a little out of his wheelhouse.

“Don’t worry, Lace, I’ve got lenses in my mask that help me see when it’s dark. Everything’s fine.” Right on cue, the night-vision lenses whirred to life and the basement was laid out in shades of green in front of him. As Peter moved forward, Lacey’s tiny fists gripped tighter onto his suit.

“Is anybody down here?” he called. A thump echoed from somewhere in the back. Peter called again. “Hello?”

 _“ —elp!” _ a muffled voice yelled. Peter rushed toward the sound, turning a corner to find a collapsed support beam blocking a door. Someone on the other side was throwing their weight into the door in vain.

“Jordan!” Lacey squealed. She tried to wriggle out of Peter’s grip but he held her tight, unwilling to let her run off into the darkness.

 _“Lacey?”_ the voice asked.

“I’m gonna get you out of there, alright?” Peter said. He took a few steps back from the door and put Lacey down. “Don’t move, kiddo.” Lacey nodded and Peter turned back to the support beam.

“Jordon, I need you to step back from the door until I tell you it’s safe to come through,” he said. The banging against the door stopped.

_“O-okay!”_

Peter braced his feet against the cement floor, tucking his shoulder under the beam. He placed his hands flat against it and took a deep breath before slowly lifting. Plaster and paint rained from the ceiling as he hefted the beam inch by inch, but he managed to hoist it over his head.

“Okay, Jordan, come out carefully!”

The door creaked open, and a teenage boy—maybe a year or two older than Peter—slipped through. “I can’t see anything!” he said.

“Lacey, talk to your brother,” Peter grit. His arms were starting to shake. “Jordan, move toward her voice.”

Lacey took up the initiative and started singing some song from a children’s cartoon and Jordan eased around Peter to get to her. Peter shifted his hold on the support beam and began lowering it to the ground. The ceiling gave a final shudder as the beam touched the floor and then everything went still. Peter breathed a sigh of relief.

He looked back at the two siblings and Jordan was on his knees, smothering his sister in a hug. Peter gave them a second and then tapped him on the shoulder.

“We should get out of here.”

Jordan picked up Lacey and Peter grabbed his wrist to lead them out of the basement. They made it up the stairwell and out onto the streets. Peter winced as his eyes were assaulted with the sudden light. His mask lenses whirred and switched back to normal. When he turned around, Jordan was gaping at him.

“You’re Spider-Man,” he said.

“The one and only.” Peter looked down the block and saw that the robots had made their way farther down the street. Sam caught sight of him and waved.

“I-I couldn’t see it down there, but you— you’re—”

Peter cut him off. “One of the guys making bad fashion and/or life decisions out here? Yep.”

Clint snickered in his ear and Peter almost startled. He shook his head. “Take her, run to the end of the block, and then go right. Seriously _book it_ , man. And watch your head, ‘cause pretty soon it might be raining men. Not literally. Figuratively. Y’know what, if I have to explain it, it’s a bad metaphor, never mind.”

Jordan nodded, his face serious, and then he smiled.

“Thank you,” he said. Peter waved a vague hand.

“Fighting crime, spinning webs, lifting buildings, all part of the job.” He flung a web out and launched back into the air. “See ya ‘round!”

Peter swung to the top of an undamaged building and took a second to assess the situation. Back near 18th, the others had managed to take down one of the robots. Smoke rose in thin plumes from the remains, making the area look more like a war zone than a city street. Though maybe it technically was a war zone. Peter didn’t want to think about that.

Sam and Scott had managed to slow the two robots that had been moving toward Stuyvesant Square, but hadn’t yet stopped them. Peter looked down at the empty streets—Jordan and Lacey had turned the corner and disappeared from view—and decided it was time for a more hands-on approach.

“Here we go again!” Peter said, throwing himself off the rooftop to swing down to where the action was. He caught up to where Sam was circling the closer of the two bots, dive-bombing it in an effort to throw it off balance. “You guys still need hand?”

“Why, you lookin’ to go home?” Sam threw back. “Nap time already?”

“Oh har-dee har-har.” Peter landed on top of the robot’s head. “Make fun of the newbie, I see how it is.”

“I’m sure you and the senior citizens can grab an early dinner before hitting the hay.”

“Respect your damn elders, Wilson,” Bucky said and Sam laughed. Falcon swung low to thread through the robot’s legs and come out the other side. Peter watched him for second, then scurried down to perch just above the bot’s neck where a small box protruded from the otherwise seamless metal. He reached out a hand toward it.

“Mr. Stark, I think there’s an access panel on the back of the robots’ heads. I think if I just— Whoa!” The robot twisted suddenly and Peter was thrown off. For a scary second he was falling, before instinct took over and he shot out a web to catch himself.

“I’m good!” he said before anyone could ask. He swung over to land on the side of a building. “I think if I can get to the panel I can short out the power, or at least give Scott a way in.”

“Alright, kid, go for it,” Tony said. “Let’s see if we can wrap this up.”

Peter jumped off the wall and swung farther down the street, putting some distance between himself and the robot so he could build up speed. He pivoted and turned back. The robot stomped toward him, undeterred by the tiny figure in spandex hurtling through the air, as if Peter was just a brightly-colored gnat.

“Look out below!” he yelled.

Peter got close and the whole world seemed to slow.

He was flying, feet-first, at the robot’s head. In his periphery, something moved. His head turned to look at it, but then it was too close, too big for him to see the whole picture. It was a metal hand, swatting him down like a bug. He opened his mouth to yell, squeezed his eyes shut against the impact.

He felt his spidey sense blare, felt something breaking, and then he felt nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I gotta ge’ back ou’ there,” Peter wheezed. Tony could practically hear the broken ribs in his voice. Still, Peter pushed himself up onto his hands and his one good knee, his arms trembling like leaves, trickles of blood dripping onto his exposed fingers. “I’ll be fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mostly inconsequential but I edited chapter 1 to move the fight to a different part of the city because I reread it and realized it made no sense geographically :p consider my new yorker card revoked. tags also updated because I think Sam and Bucky are going to be bigger parts of this than originally anticipated
> 
> tw for graphic depictions of injuries

“Let’s see if we can wrap this up,” Tony said. The fight had finally turned in their favor; one robot was down and they were making quick work of the other two in their sector, the rest of the team having broken up into separate, effective groups to target the machines’ weaker points. If the kid knew what he was doing—and Tony had total faith that he did—the last of the metal monstrosities could soon be out for the count.

He doubted it was coincidence that they’d gotten their footing right after Spidey had shown up. The kid threw out suggestions and quips with equal speed, keeping the rest of them engaged and working together, a cohesive unit that had been distinctly absent until his arrival. They’d all overheard him guiding the little girl and her brother out of the building and somehow that had reminded them what they were fighting  _ for. _ It was easy to rally around him.

Peter had mountains of potential, and compassion, and humanity, and Tony was starting to feel the dangerous inklings of pride.

“Look out below!” he heard Spidey yell and Tony couldn’t help but roll his eyes. He fired a repulsor beam at one of the knee joints on the robot in front of him and its leg buckled, sending it crashing to one knee, creating a giant crater in the street. Steve took the opportunity to throw his shield at one of its “eyes,” cracking the lens.

A deafening  _ thud _ blasted in Tony’s ear and he flinched away from an attack before realizing it had come over the comm and steadying himself in the air.

“Oh,  _ shit, _ ” Sam breathed over the line.

“What the hell was that?” Tony demanded. “Did something explode?” He looked up, but there was no smoke in the distance, no fire.

“Spidey’s down,” Sam said, voice clipped and urgent. His playfulness was gone, replaced with sudden seriousness and a hard edge of fear that made Tony see white. He turned sharply in the air to rocket away from the robot he’d been engaging, barreling down the street.

“Spidey?” he called over the comm as he flew, hoping, praying the kid would respond, laugh it off and say he was fine, say  _ something _ . “Spider-Man? C’mon, kid, tell me what’s going on.”

Nothing. Tony hurtled around a corner. Then he saw him.

Peter was sprawled out on his side in the middle of the road, facing Tony, his mask twisted around, exposing his jaw. One of his legs was bent at a sickening angle, blood turning the blue lining of his suit dark purple. He was lying about a hundred yards from the robot making its way toward him.

“Sam! Keep that thing away from him!” Tony barked. In his periphery, Sam spun midair and raced back down the street. Tony rushed closer.

He touched down hard on the concrete and almost stumbled out of his suit as it folded away from around him. He dropped to his knees and stretched out a hand, then pulled it back.

“Spidey?” he said. “How you doing, kid, you alright? Talk to me, squirt.” The lenses of Peter’s mask whirred. He was opening his eyes, that was good, he was awake, he was okay. His jaw opened and closed a couple times, like he was trying to figure out how to use it.

“I feel li’e...one ‘f those— those Rock’m Sock’m rob’ts,” he slurred eventually. His words were barely distinguishable from each other. Tony laughed, even if it sounded like a sob of relief.

“Didn’t even know you were old enough to have played with those,” he said. Peter hummed in agreement instead of answering. The kid—and  _ Jesus,  _ he was just a kid, wasn’t he?—rolled slowly onto his front, cheeks puffed out with the effort of not letting any noise of pain escape. Tony’s eyes were stuck on the stomach-turning, unnatural twist of Peter’s left knee, the way his leg was dragging along the ground like dead weight as he tried to get up.

“Hey, hey, not so fast, buddy,” Tony said, hands still hovering over the torn and tattered remains of the spidey suit. He glanced over his shoulder at his own suit and called out: “FRIDAY, tell the Tower we’re gonna need a doctor on standby. And tell the team Spidey and I are out of this one.”

“I gotta ge’ back ou’ there,” Peter wheezed. Tony could practically hear the broken ribs in his voice. Still, Peter pushed himself up onto his hands and his one good knee, his arms trembling like leaves, trickles of blood dripping onto his exposed fingers. “I’ll be fine.”

Tony put a hand on his shoulder to ease him back down and Peter seemed to choke on air at the touch, a cry of pain caught in his throat. He collapsed hard against the pavement and screamed through gritted teeth as Tony jerked backward.

“FRIDAY, we need medevac,  _ now!”  _ he screamed at his suit, heart hammering in his chest. When he turned back, he caught sight of red—dark, dark red, and so much of it—staining the back of Peter’s mask, spreading steadily outward.

Peter rolled onto his back and was panting heavily, each breath a struggle. He squeezed his eyes shut a moment. 

“‘m okay,” he said. He wasn’t looking at Tony, instead staring up into the sky as if he was talking to himself. “‘m okay, I jus’— I jus’ need a breather.”

“Take all the minutes you need, okay, kiddo? Just— Just stay down, we’re gonna get you some help.” Tony wanted to pick him up, fly him out of there as fast as possible, get him to a damn doctor, but he knew it was a dangerous impulse. Peter couldn’t be moved, not yet. They didn’t know the extent of his injuries and couldn’t risk making it worse. 

He felt so helpless.

The external speaker in the Iron Man suit crackled to life, making Tony flinch with the sudden sounds of a battle being fought four blocks over.  _ “Tony,”  _ came Steve’s voice,  _ “the robots in our area are down, we’re heading to your location. Main objective is keeping these things away from Spider-Man until he can be brought to safety.” _

A chorus of affirmatives from the other Avengers came immediately, but Tony found he couldn’t speak, too focused on staying by Peter’s side despite how little he could do. His head bobbed up and down in a frantic nod, though the only person who could see it was a little preoccupied with staying conscious.

The roar of an engine sailed overhead and Tony glanced up from Peter’s battered body for the barest of seconds to see Rhodey rushing to engage the robot closest to them. War Machine fired a repulsor blast that jolted the robot back a step and made the windows in nearby buildings quiver. On instinct Tony hunched protectively over Peter in case any of the glass shattered, but the windows held firm.

_ “I’ve got the quinjet,”  _ Natasha said.  _ “ETA forty-five seconds.” _

“Hurry,” Tony bit, but he doubted it would be heard over the battle picking up around them. He looked over his shoulder and saw Steve, Barnes, and Clint rounding the corner at a full sprint, weapons firing off the second they were within range. High in the air above the robot’s head, Scott ballooned briefly to human size with a startled yelp before falling and shrinking out of view once more.

Rhodey’s blast had pushed the thing back a few feet, but it was still closer than it had been when Peter had gone down and was closing the distance with each passing minute. There was another one, a block over, that was lumbering unhindered up 3rd Avenue now that the team’s efforts were so diverted. Spidey’s web barrier several blocks ahead was the only deterrent to its progress.

A shadow fell over the street and Tony looked to the sky to see the quinjet emerging over the building behind him before it maneuvered to set down in the street twenty feet away. The engines cut, the hanger opened, and Natasha came running out, a cloth stretcher tucked under one arm.

She stumbled and nearly fell as an enormous crash echoed down the block and the asphalt split, a jagged, lightning-shaped line tearing through the road as gray dust obscured the scene. Tony raised a hand to shield his face from the kicked up debris before turning and seeing the toppled robot behind him. A handful of vague figures in the dust cloud hesitated before taking off in a sprint after the remaining machine.

A strained groan broke the following silence and Tony whipped around to see Peter reaching toward his head with a shaking hand. A half-second later, the same sound came from the Iron Man suit.

_ His comm’s still functional,  _ a near-manic part of Tony’s brain said.  _ That’s good, that’s important. He can still call for help when he’s— when he’s like this. _

“Is— is tha’ anoth’r one down?” Peter managed, his voice tight with pain. Before Tony could answer, Sam touched down touched down right beside him, his wings folding away behind his back before he lowered himself to one knee.

“Yep. Just one more to go, kid.” Sam grinned and it was almost genuine, his concern tucked far away where Peter couldn’t see it. He took Peter’s raised hand and squeezed it gently. “No thanks to you.”

“Well, wha’ di’ you and y’r dumb wings do?” Peter shot back. His eyes were still raised skyward.

“Every team needs someone to stand around and look pretty and that’s my burden to bear.” He nudged the bunched edge of Peter’s mask with his finger. “Can you breathe okay with that thing?”

Peter hesitated and Tony realized he was the only one on the team who even knew the kid’s real name, never mind had seen his face.

“Is it alright if I roll it up a little bit?” Sam continued. Peter stayed stock still as he slowly, gently extended his hand, and then he nodded. Sam offered him another reassuring smile. “Just a tiny bit, kid. None of us wanna see your ugly-ass face anyway.”

Peter smiled as Sam tugged the mask over his nose and there was blood on his teeth and Tony’s whole world went hazy for a moment before approaching footfalls forced him to focus. Barnes came to a halt where Natasha was laying out the stretcher.

“How’s he doin’?” he asked her quietly. She spared Peter a glance and pursed her lips.

“Could be better,” she said. “Could be worse. Give me a hand moving him.”

Barnes shifted so he could slide his hands under Peter’s arms as Natasha took hold under his knees. A quick count off, and they lifted.

Peter screamed.

They eased him back down onto the stretcher and he went limp, panting hard, visible skin pale and clammy.

“What is it, what hurts?” Tony asked, surging forward again to offer some sort of help or comfort or  _ anything,  _ but still too scared to touch him.

“‘m okay,” Peter grit after a moment. “Was just— pressure, all of a sudden, or somethin’. Don’ worry.”

There was a few seconds of strained silence as Barnes and Natasha adjusted his position on the stretcher. Peter’s face contorted in a wince every time they touched his left leg, but he made no more sounds of pain.

“Get ready to lift,” Natasha said. Up by Peter’s head, Barnes nodded. They rose in one smooth motion, Sam rising with them, hand still clasped around Peter’s, and Tony scrambled to follow suit. Peter blinked rapidly, eyes fixed on something in the sky.

“I—” he began. “I messed up.”

The breath was stolen from Tony’s lungs as he tried to find something reassuring to say, but Barnes didn’t hesitate. “Bein’ a fuck-up makes you an official Avenger, kid.”

Peter found another smile as they began the steady march to the quinjet. “Tha’ right?”

“Tiny little insect taking on that giant hunk of metal head-on,” Sam said. “You’ve got some nerve, Spider-Brat, I’ll give you that.”

“Spid’rs are…” Peter took a breath. “...arachnids.”

Barnes arched an eyebrow and shared a look with Sam. “He’s a nerd too, huh? We’re learning so much today, aren’t we, Wilson?”

Peter laughed, and then winced, and Tony saw his grip on Sam’s hand tighten.

“‘m injured, you’re no’ allowed t’ be mean t’ me.” Sam scoffed and Barnes waved a flippant hand through the air.

“You’ll walk it off, punk,” said Barnes.

“Dunno if my leg’s in good enough shape for tha’.” Peter’s eyes flickered down to his mangled knee, but Sam squeezed his hand again and whistled to catch his attention.

“Quit doubting us, man, we know what we’re talkin’ about. You’re gonna be bouncing around again in no time.”

Barnes groaned in faux horror. “Ugh, maybe we should just let him stay down.” Sam jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

“We can put him right back.”

Tony had the sudden, horrible image of Peter lying in the street, alone even as the dust settled. He saw the dark red stain around the kid’s head getting wider, and wider, and wider until it finally stopped, until there was nothing left to save. Tony stomach twisted painfully.

“No,” said Peter, in the quietest voice Tony had ever heard from him. “Here’s better.”

Sam squeezed his hand again. “Here’s better.”

Out of Peter’s view, Barnes’s face softened into something Tony couldn’t identify as he stepped onto the quinjet ramp and lead their small group inside toward the center table where they laid the stretcher down. Natasha hurried up to the pilot’s chair to strap herself in and within seconds, they were airborne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay! I had a major health scare with my dog and that threw me off the rails for a bit (he's fine now though, don't worry!!). future updates hopefully shouldn't take as long


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stark fidgeted across from him, looking pale and terrified. Some small, intensely protective part of Sam wanted to tell him to pull it together, for the kid’s sake; it was all the more frustrating that Tony’s usual attitude to a teammate being injured was to joke, to deflect, to distract, and yet it was absent with the one person on their team who probably needed it most.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to come up with an excuse for why this update took so dang long but sometimes it just be like that
> 
> tw for major injuries to a minor (but you probably knew that already)

Sam didn’t know how he was smiling.

Experience, probably. He’d been a soldier—still was, if he was honest with himself—and this was not the first bloodied kid he’d seen on a battlefield. Something about this situation was more intense, though, more surreal. He’d been mixed up in this superhero bullshit for _years_ now but he was still sometimes thrown for a loop by the powered-up villains they took down, by the colorful costumes of the friends at his side.

Spidey’s hand started to tremble in his own. From shock, blood loss, straight-up fear, Sam didn’t know. He squeezed it again as the quinjet eased into the air, gripping the table Spidey was laid out on to keep his balance as they picked up speed. The second the ship steadied out, Bucky strode away to hunt for medical supplies.

Stark fidgeted across from him, looking pale and terrified. Some small, intensely protective part of Sam wanted to tell him to pull it together, for the kid’s sake; it was all the more frustrating that Tony’s usual attitude to a teammate being injured was to joke, to deflect, to distract, and yet it was absent with the one person on their team who probably needed it most.

“We’re gonna take you back to the Tower’s medical team,” Stark was saying, his voice shaky and rambling. “Best in the biz, you’re gonna be fine, alright?”

Spidey’s already harsh breathing caught.

“Th-they’ll know who I am.” His hand tightened around Sam’s fingers.

“You need treatment,” Stark insisted.

“I know I was joking about you being hideous under the mask, but it ain’t worth dyin’ for, kid,” Sam said. Spidey’s head jerked in his direction, too fast, Sam could tell, and a horrible grinding noise sounded from the lenses in his mask as they tried to mimic him squeezing his eyes shut in pain. Something within the mechanism had to be damaged beyond repair. He could see a slip of skin where the lense had torn partially from the suit.

 _“No.”_ His voice was laced with pain, but also a renewed intensity.

He was in too much pain to be thinking rationally, too out of it have a good reason to avoid medical attention. It would be stupid and sentimental to give in to him. But even if Sam didn’t understand why the kid was so adamant about this, he knew it mattered to him. Even more than his own life.

Sam laid a hand as gently as he could on his shoulder.

“Alright, half-pint.” He shared a look with Stark. “We’ll figure something out.”

The tension leached out of Spidey’s body with a shaky exhale. He smiled in Sam’s direction, strained and with blood between his teeth.

“Any ideas, Tony?” Stark seemed to shake himself, blinking furiously, before his gaze zeroed in on the spidey suit.

“We, uh. We gotta get the uniform off. It’s a dead giveaway.” He spun in place and almost crashed into Bucky, whose arms were filled with towels, bottles of saline, and a red first aid kit. Stark stepped around him and started rummaging through a cabinet and came back a moment later with heavy-duty scissors.

“Right, squirt, I’m gonna start cutting this away.” He lifted the edge of the suit near Spidey’s neck. Spidey winced and laughed wetly.

“Seein’ my suit ge’ des’royed is… gonna hurt worse tha’ my leg.”

Bucky rapped his good leg with two knuckles. “We’ll make you another one, punk, take it easy.” He started passing towels and saline to Sam, who had to let go of Spidey’s hand. “I ever tell you about the time Steve tried to take a bullet to keep his motorcycle from gettin’ messed up?” When Spidey shook his head, he continued: “See, Steve could barely _ride_ the damn thing, more often than not he just let it run into HYDRA bases to break up defenses, but Peggy said something to him about taking better care of his equipment…”

Sam let the story fade into the background as he eased a towel under Spidey’s bleeding head. He took a few more and used them to prop up his feet to encourage blood flow to major organs.

“Buck, keep pressure on that head wound,” he said as he turned to another cabinet to grab his field medic equipment. Bucky moved without even pausing his story.

“—Steve has a solid eight inches on this guy, but his shield is still over by the tree and the guy’s trigger finger is shakin’ as badly as the rest of him…”

Sam peeled off one of Spidey’s gloves so he could press two fingers against his wrist for a clean pulse. He started counting and kept an eye on his watch; his heartbeat was stronger than Sam would have expected for someone in danger of shock—maybe the internal bleeding wasn’t as bad as it could have been—but it was far too fast.

“—he’s on the ground, looking like a star-spangled idiot, and I would have been laughing at him if I wasn’t seein’ red already...”

Sam’s laserfocus widened enough for him to realize that Stark had cut away almost the entirety of the suit and had pulled it away to expose Spidey’s purpling, bruise-covered skin. He could see the blackened outline of his ribs on one side where he must have taken the direct hit. Spidey’s body had pretty noticeable muscle, but there was also long, gangly limbs and protruding collarbones—one of which was definitely broken—and so many old scars. Sam’s hands faltered for a split second as he started to wrap a blood pressure cuff around Spidey’s arm, but he recovered before the kid noticed and pressed the head of a stethoscope into the crease of his elbow. He inflated the cuff, deflated, and tried to suppress his despair as the reading fell, and fell, and fell.

So much for optimism. Major internal bleeding it was.

“—so Steve tries to tell her he was just doin’ what she asked and that made Peg even _madder—_ hey, punk, you still listenin’ to me?” Worry colored Bucky’s voice and Sam’s head snapped up.

Spidey’s head had started to loll to the side, Bucky’s hands pressed against his head wound the only thing keeping him steady. Bucky shot him an almost panicked look.

“Hey, hey,” Sam said, tapping Spidey’s shoulder urgently, “You don’t get to take a nap while the rest of us are doing the hard work. Stay awake for me, alright?” Spidey mumbled something incoherent in response. Sam looked up at Stark, whose face was draining of color. “Tony, grab blankets from that closet over there. Nat, what’s our ETA?”

“A minute thirty!”

“A minute and a half, kid, alright? Stay with us ‘til then.”

Stark came back with blankets in hand and at Sam’s instruction he started throwing them over the kid’s body. Sam turned to Bucky.

“I need a better look at that head injury. Mask’s gotta come off.”

Spidey whined, in pain or objection or both, as Bucky adjusted his hands to lift his head from the table and Sam hooked his thumbs under the edge of the mask.

“No,” Spidey slurred, panic edging into his voice, and his hands came up to slap ineffectually at Sam’s arms. Sam stopped.

“Spidey, we— There aren’t a lot of other options, buddy.” There was nothing stopping him from taking the mask off anyway, not with every ounce of Spidey’s super strength sapped from his limbs, but he couldn't do it. Couldn’t do this when his teammate—his _friend,_ dammit—was almost begging him not to.

“S’not— not _safe,”_ Spidey insisted.

“Neither is leaving a head wound untreated,” Bucky said. Spidey’s breathing picked up and he tried to shake his head, but Bucky held him still.

“S’mthin’ b-bad’ll happen.”

Sam’s right fingers uncurled from the mask and grabbed Spidey’s hand. He squeezed gently, looking him in the eyes. “We’re not gonna let anything bad happen. You’ve got my word.”

Nobody moved. They barely breathed until Spidey squeezed his fingers back and whispered, voice shaking, “Okay.”

Sam wasted no time in easing the blood-stained mask over his head, ignoring the face revealed in favor of avoiding hurting him further, and he tossed it onto the bench behind him. He didn’t miss Bucky’s sharp inhale and braced himself for the worst. He looked down.

Fuck.

It was a _kid._ On some level Sam had known he was young, hell, the team teased him for it constantly, but that hadn’t prepared him for the baby face smeared with blood that stared up at him with wide, innocent, _scared_ eyes. He didn’t even look like he shaved yet, for crying out loud.

The way Sam’s stomach twisted at the blood dribbling from the corner of Spidey’s mouth reminded him with a jolt why he’d taken the mask off in the first place. He maneuvered around the table and nudged Bucky out of the way so he could examine the head injury.

“You’re not as ugly as Barnes, if that’s any comfort to you,” Sam said, forcing fake levity into his tone as he cradled Spidey’s head. Blood quickly seeped over his hands. “But he does set the bar pretty low.”

“Fuck you, Wilson.”

“Love you too, pal.”

Spidey laughed again and Sam couldn’t help but stare at the way his face moved; he watched the crinkling of his eyes, the way his nose scrunched up as he smiled, details that seemed so _right_ with the Spidey he knew that were normally hidden under the mask. The privilege proved a double-edged sword as the same face twisted into a pained expression Sam had never had to see before.

Sam struggled to keep his composure; it was so much harder to maintain his own mask now that the kid’s was gone. Spidey always sounded like he was smiling and Sam had never had any reason to second guess that, but now he couldn’t stop himself from wondering if the kid had those same scared eyes while he was cracking jokes on the battlefield.

(Would he ever get to see him laugh? Would the kid pull through this and Sam would finally get to see as well as hear a full, genuine laugh from him?)

He forced his attention from the way Spidey’s eyes kept focusing and unfocusing on everything around them and instead leaned down to look at the injury. He tilted Spidey’s head forward just a little bit, his fingers spread wide over the kid’s unruly dark hair to avoid putting too much pressure in any one spot.

There were several deep lacerations where Sam assumed Spidey had first hit the ground, but the blood flow from the area was already slowing. No, what was more worrying was the shallow depression at the impact site that indicated a skull fracture and almost definitely meant serious traumatic brain injury. It wasn’t great, to say the least.

“We’ve got a medical team waiting to receive him at the Tower, right?” he asked. Stark tore his gaze from Spidey and seemed to flounder for a moment before FRIDAY cut in.

_“Dr. Cho and her team are already on the landing pad.”_

“And Bruce,” Stark said abruptly. “We’re gonna need Bruce too. He’s the closest thing the world’s got to an expert in superhuman physiology.”

_“I will alert Dr. Banner immediately.”_

Stark nodded almost frantically, his mind seeming to speed away to some next step, some sort of plan. “Send him all the data Spidey and I collected about his powers.”

_“Consider it done, Boss.”_

“Have we got a cover story here?” Bucky asked. “Some way to explain how he got these injuries without givin’ away the whole thing?”

“He’s just a kid who got caught in the crossfire,” Stark said, still looking miles away. “He needed help, we brought him here. Docs’ll be too busy to ask too many questions anyway.”

Bucky and Sam shared a look; there was no way the story would hold. The kid’s powers were evident to anyone willing to look closely and it wouldn’t be too much of a leap from “unknown superpowered kid” to “Spider-Man”, _especially_ when Spidey and Cho had interacted before.

But Spidey needed this. God, Sam didn’t, _couldn’t_ understand the paranoia over his identity when his life was at stake, but he wasn’t gonna kick the kid while he was down. The cover was useless in the long run, but the tension in Spidey’s shoulders was slowly easing and the panic was fading from his too-young face and Sam knew he’d tell a million bullshit lies if it granted the kid any comfort.

Sam was watching Stark when he felt Spidey moving in his hands and when he looked down he saw Spidey angling his head so he could meet Sam’s eyes.

“Hi,” he slurred. “M’name’s Pet’r.”

Sam lost his voice for a second.

“I’d shake your hand,” he said eventually, “but mine are pretty much covered in blood.”

Spidey _—Peter—_ huffed out a laugh. “Fair enough.” He tilted his head back down toward Bucky. “Hi, ‘m—”

“I’m standing less than a foot away, I fuckin’ heard you, kid.” Bucky rolled his eyes and lifted Peter’s wrist up for him so he could shake his hand. “Peter is too goddamn normal a name for a weirdo like you.”

“Y’know, I ge’ tha’ a lot.” Peter smiled and there was a softness to it, a drowsiness, that made Sam uneasy.

“I was serious about staying awake,” he said as Peter’s eyelids started to flutter. Bucky picked up his wrist again and squeezed his hand and Peter scrunched up his nose.

“But ‘m tired.”

“So am I, kid,” Sam said. “Did you not see me fight that huge robot? But I’m not sleeping on the job and neither are you.”

“You’re _mean,_ Sam,” he whined, looking to Bucky instead for support. “Tell ‘im he’s mean.”

“Wilson,” Bucky said, voice so deadly serious that Sam couldn’t help but look at him. “You’re mean.”

He felt lightheaded for a second at the absurdity of the situation; he was dressed in a metal bird costume, holding a grievously injured teenage superhero, while a hundred-year-old former assassin called him _mean._ A bark of laughter burst from his chest.

“You’re goddamn right I am.”

He grabbed another towel and pressed it against Spidey’s head, even though the bleeding had slowed to a trickle. Peter winced, then his face slackened and his eyes went unfocused.

“Hey, hey, hey, Peter, stay with us,” Stark said, surging forward, his hand hovering over Peter’s chest. “You heard Sam, you gotta stay awake.”

“But ‘m _tired,”_ he said again.

“Twenty seconds, fellas,” Natasha called back to them.

“Just a few more minutes, Petey, just wait until we get you into the doc’s hands.” Stark’s hand finally landed on a mostly unbruised section of Peter’s shoulder and the kid’s eyes flickered in his direction, but his gaze didn’t focus.

“M’head hurts,” he said instead.

“Hitting concrete at forty miles an hour will do that to you,” Bucky said and Stark flinched.

“M’chest too,” Peter said and he took a deep, rattling breath, wincing as he stretched his broken ribs.

“The medical team will have oxygen and probably some painkillers at the ready when we set down,” Sam told him. “That should make it a little easier to breathe.”

Peter made a petulant noise in the back of his throat. “They don’ _work.”_

“I’m sure Cho has something a little stronger than the Advil you get at home, kid,” Stark said. “We’ll find you something that works.”

Peter nodded, just barely, his head mostly restrained by Sam’s hands on his skull. His glassy eyes shifted back to the ceiling and he pulled in another wheezing gasp of air that made all three men standing around him wince.

Then he took another breath, sharper this time, then another, and another, his back starting to arch off the table as his eyes rolled back into his head. Sam frantically felt for his pulse as Spidey writhed in sudden pain in front of him and his erratic heart beat hard against his fingertips.

“Shit,  _shit!_ Peter? Peter, talk to me!” Stark put his other hand on Peter’s shoulder as the kid curled into the touch, both of them shaking like leaves. “Wilson, what the fuck is happening?!”

“I’m not a damn doctor, Stark, I don’t know!” he snapped back. Bucky wrapped Peter’s hand in both of his, rubbing circles against Peter’s skin as he watched his face, his own expression tormented with concern.

“Landing now!” Nat yelled from the front. The cabin jolted slightly as she swung the quinjet around to touch down on the landing pad.

At the same moment, Peter’s body went limp.

“Oh _fuck…”_ Bucky breathed.

“Pulse is still going strong,” Sam said, two fingers still on Peter’s jugular. “He’s out, but alive. Buck, help the med team get the stretcher up here.”

Bucky turned without hesitation and strode out of the quinjet before the bay door had even fully opened. Cho came rushing forward in his stead.

“What’s the situation?” she demanded, eyes scanning over Peter’s body.

“Teenage male, took a direct hit from one of the robots and fell about forty feet,” Sam rattled off. “Severe head injury, but the bleeding’s almost stopped. Multiple fractures, contusions, and lacerations across his entire body, including a total dislocation of his left knee. He was having trouble breathing right before he passed out.”

“Which was when?”

“About ten seconds ago.”

Cho turned over her shoulder and made a sharp motion toward one of the other medical staff. “Let’s get him on oxygen, immediately.”

Another young woman came running ahead of the stretcher Bucky was helping haul up the ramp, a breathing mask in hand. She secured it over Peter’s face and the bag began to automatically inflate and deflate, helping air into his lungs.

More people surged forward and Sam handed off the towel against Peter’s head to step back and give the team room to work. He had to tug Stark away from the kid’s side when it seemed he was too shell-shocked to realize he was in the way.

“Alright,” Cho said, “let’s move him.” She and the others took hold of the cloth stretcher beneath Peter, counted off, then lifted and transferred him to the wheeled gurney.

“He’s gonna be fine,” Stark insisted, almost to himself, startling Sam from his intense focus on watching them move Spidey out of the quinjet. “Between his healing factor and that goddamn stubbornness of his, he’s gonna be fine.”

Sam swallowed. Nodded. Took Stark’s arm and started following the medical team into the med bay.

“He’s gonna be fine.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky kept waiting for Sam to say something first, but it seemed Sam was as bone-weary as he was, too drained to make conversation, or maybe just too caught up in his own thoughts. Whatever it was, neither of them said anything until the elevator dinged open once more a few minutes later and the remaining Avengers strode out, piling into the hallway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we all know the aftermath is where the angst _really_ starts, right?
> 
> no content warnings for this chap!

Bucky felt a little like he was standing on the deck of a ship; the ground under his feet moving, slightly off-kilter, threatening to unbalance him even as he was standing still. He crossed his arms and tucked his fingers against his sides where no one else could see the mounting tension that made it feel like his ligaments could snap at any second.

Sam watched the ICU doors swing closed then fell into the chair to Bucky’s right, slumping forward and running a hand over his close-cropped hair. Stark strode forward like he was going to burst right through after the medical team, but he exhaled sharply instead and just watched them rush Spidey down the hallway.

“Shit,” Sam breathed.

“Yeah.” Bucky loosened his grip on his own shirt to scrub a hand over his face. “Shit.”

The elevator dinged and Banner came tumbling out of the doorway, a holographic display bobbing in his grasp he hurried forward.

“Tony?” he said as Stark moved to intercept. “FRIDAY said something about Spider-Man being injured? What’s going on?”

“Did you get the data FRI sent you on his powers?” Stark asked as if he hadn’t heard him.

“Yeah, I-I did. From the few things I’ve been able to read in the past couple minutes it’s fascinating, but I don’t know what you want me to do with all this.”

Stark took him by the shoulders and started pushing him toward the ICU entry. “I need you to assist Cho and her team. We’re trying to keep Spidey’s identity under wraps so we’ve brought him in posing as a civilian, but we need you in there to manage his physiology.”

Banner pried Stark’s hands from his shoulders and spun to face him. “You’re doing  _ what? _ Tony, keeping secrets from doctors is a bad idea in  _ any _ circumstance, but this is insane!”

“Doc’s right,” Bucky broke in. “We said those things to keep the kid calm, I didn’t think we were gonna follow through.”

“You wanna be the one to tell him when he wakes up that we’ve spilled his biggest secret to a bunch of people he barely knows?” Stark snapped.

“We don’t tell them, he might not wake up at all,” Sam said. Stark glared at him, then huffed and turned away.

“Christ. He’s never gonna trust me again.” He groaned, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Alright, FRIDAY, fill the medical team in. And pull whatever info about his powers is most relevant, we don’t have time for a deep-dive.”

The screen of Banner’s device flickered as it updated, this time with bullet points of information and several highlighted sections. Banner spared it a brief glance before his face settled into a look of determination and he nodded in each of their directions.

“I’d better get in there,” he said.

“FRI’ll keep us updated,” Stark called after him as he pushed into the ICU. The doors swung shut behind him.

They all watched him jog down the hallway until he turned a corner out of sight, and even then Stark kept staring, as if the blank walls were going to offer anything new.

Bucky startled slightly as Sam disengaged his wingpack with a high pitched whir. He shook his head in a useless attempt to dispel his anxiety and caught Sam giving him a concerned look as he put the wings on the floor next to his chair and started rolling out his shoulders.

“Muscles sore?” Bucky asked for lack of anything better to say. Sam shot him a rueful smile.

“Yeah. Spent too damn long without ‘em, I’ve gone all soft.”

“Aw, poor baby.”

Sam punched him in the arm and Bucky hit him back without thinking. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, unbidden, and when he noticed it he marvelled for a second at how skilled Sam was at putting people at ease, even under these circumstances.

“You oughta sit down, Tony,” Sam said to him. Stark glanced at him briefly as he paced, one arm crossed tight across his body, the other covering the lower half of his face. “Us wearing ourselves out isn’t going to do any good at this point. It’s out of our hands. Best thing we can do is make ourselves ready for when Peter comes out.”

Stark let out a shaky laugh. “Fuck, it’s weird hearing other people say his name.” He stopped pacing but didn’t sit, instead standing right across from Sam, his shoulders hunched. He was still for all of fifteen seconds before he started walking again. Bucky chuckled in spite of himself.

“I’ll be right back,” he said to Sam. “Make sure he doesn’t wear a hole in the floor.” Sam answered with a two-fingered salute and Bucky unstuck his feet from the floor to head toward the main section of the med bay where the less life-threatening injuries were treated. 

He grabbed a reusable ice pack and filled it at the ice bucket by the entrance before shirking the top half of his uniform, leaving him in just his short-sleeved undershirt. He then rummaged around the various cabinets for a few minutes until he found the stash of heat packs. He grabbed two of the largest in the basket and made his way back to the ICU doors.

Bucky cracked one of the heat packs and laid it across the shoulder Sam was trying to massage the pain from. He groaned in appreciation and moved to hold it in place as Bucky cracked the other one.

“I take back every bad thing I’ve ever said about you, Buck.” He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall. “You’re an angel.”

“I’ve got a list of foreign ministers who wouldn’t agree with you.” Bucky held the ice pack against the dark bruise spreading across his elbow. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten it; his headspace was too full with those few minutes on the quinjet.

_ “Boss, the rest of the Avengers are coming in the underground entrance now,”  _ FRIDAY told them. _ “They should be here in just a moment.”  _

Stark buried his face in his hands. “Christ. No fucking way am I gonna manage sitting through a debrief.” He cast one last pained glance at the ICU doors before turning and walking toward the elevator. “Tell the team I’m gonna do research, see if I can find anything to help the doctors. I’ll check in with Steve later.” The doors opened, he stepped inside, and then he was gone.

Bucky kept waiting for Sam to say something first, but it seemed Sam was as bone-weary as he was, too drained to make conversation, or maybe just too caught up in his own thoughts. Whatever it was, neither of them said anything until the elevator dinged open once more a few minutes later and the remaining Avengers strode out, piling into the hallway.

“Robots taken care of?” Bucky asked when it seemed no one else knew where to start. Steve nodded sharply.

“Damage Control is picking up the pieces. We turned the investigation over to the federal authorities.”

“Where’d Nat go?” Barton asked. Sam pointed down the hall to where the quinjet hangar was.

“Taking care of the plane,” he said. “Think she felt better doing something than just sitting here moping with us.”

The already somber mood grew marginally darker.

“That bad, huh?” Scott said.

“It’s not great,” Sam said. “Skull fracture, probable brain trauma. I don’t even know how many broken bones.”

“His knee was pretty fucked,” Bucky added and Sam bit his lip, nodding.

“Have the doctors said anything about… his recovery?” Steve asked.

“Honestly? We haven’t got a goddamn clue what’s going on,” Bucky said.

“They wheeled Peter into the ICU almost forty minutes ago, but we probably won’t get any updates for another few hours,” Sam said. 

“...Peter?” Rhodes asked. Everyone shot Sam matching quizzical looks and he winced, seeming to realize he likely should have played it closer to the vest.

“Yeah,” he said, “Kid told us his name on the way over. Didn’t mean to let it slip.”

“I’m sure it would’ve come out anyway,” Bucky said in an effort to ease the guilty look on Sam’s face. “No reason to tell us if he wasn’t planning on tellin’ the whole team.” A sudden thought struck him, sending his stomach into his boots. “And I guess we’d learn it from his family anyway, ‘cause we gotta let ‘em know what happened.”

_ “Fuck,”  _ Sam said with feeling. He sunk deeper into the chair, letting go of the heat packs to lean forward onto his knees and put his face in his hands. “I didn’t even think of that. We gotta talk to his  _ parents.  _ I don’t know if I can do that, man.”

“I’m sure they saw it on the news,” Rhodes said, his expression grim. “They must watch when he goes out to— to fight with us.” Bucky couldn’t help but shift his stance to try and shake off the sudden discomfort at those words.

“That’s assuming they know he’s Spider-Man,” Steve said. The group exchanged looks, Scott in particular looking unnerved by this possibility.

“I think he probably still lives with ‘em,” Bucky said and Sam nodded in agreement, though he wasn’t meeting anyone else’s gaze. “And that’s a pretty tough secret to keep under one roof.”

“In any case,” Steve broke in, “Tony will be able to get in touch with them. He implied pretty heavily that he knew Spider-Man’s identity even before all of this went down. If the parents know, I’m sure he’s already called them. They might be on their way to the Tower right now.”

“That thought is not comforting,” Sam said.

“Ditto,” Scott said.

“Speaking of Tony,” Steve went on, “where’d he go?”

“Probably locked himself in his workshop already,” Natasha said as she came up the hallway from behind them. She’d washed the dust and grime from the battle off her face and had changed into her street clothes, but her hair was still a tangle that she’d dragged back into a ponytail. “Either that or he’s personally hunting down whoever constructed those robots.”

“It’s the first,” Bucky said. “He’s sifting through info on Spidey’s powers to help the docs.” He jerked a finger at the ICU doors. “That’s why Banner’s in there now.”

Barton frowned. “I get the need for discretion with the whole secret identity thing, but shouldn’t that have been done way before now? I mean, we’ve got work-ups on all you other enhanced fuckers’ physiologies.”

“Kid’s real paranoid about anyone knowin’ who he is,” Bucky said. “Nearly had a panic attack when we had to take his mask off so Sam could check his head wound. He apparently ran some tests with Stark to gather data, but I don’t see him letting a group of doctors do a full study like they did for the rest of us.”

“I don’t like that this is all speculation,” Natasha said. “We should know what’s going on with our own teammates.”

Steve sighed. “We let Tony take the lead on this one. He recruited Spider-Man initially, and based on all the information we had on him, he seemed like a capable fighter and a decent young man. I guess I thought he’d open up to us soon enough and Tony’s word would be good enough until then.” He cast a forlorn look at the ICU. “Maybe I should have anticipated something like this happening before that time came.”

“I don’t know how you would’ve,” Scott said. “Frankly, Spidey was doing a better job than any of us before… y’know. I would’ve thought he’d be the last one to go down.”

The conversation faltered. Bucky finally gave in to the weariness filling his whole body and leaned back against the wall behind him, letting out a heavy sigh. He watched where Sam sat, head still in his hands, still not looking at anyone. He’d let the heat packs fall behind him and his shoulders were hunched tight around his ears. There was blood, none of it his, smeared across his uniform and flaking from between his fingers. The weariness grew.

“You two should go get cleaned up,” Steve said gently, apparently noticing the same thing, and Bucky realized he couldn’t be in a much better state himself. “We’ll let you know as soon as there’s any update.”

“You gonna talk to Stark?” Bucky asked as he pushed himself up. Sam made no motion to stand.

“I’ll see if he’s contacted Spider-Man’s family and then give him an hour to gather whatever information he can for the medical team before a full debrief. We’ll see how it goes from there.”

Bucky nodded and turned back to Sam, who was still sitting. He leaned down and tugged gently on Sam’s arm until he stood and the group parted for them as they walked into the elevator, Rhodes and Scott taking their places in the chairs. Sam seemed to come back to himself as the elevator doors closed, drawing in a deep breath through his nose and standing up straighter.

“My rooms, please, FRIDAY,” Bucky said and they started moving down. He turned to Sam. “I really just need to change, so you’re welcome to use the shower in my place.” Sam nodded.

“Thanks, man,” he said quietly.

The doors opened again and they stepped into Bucky’s apartment. It was pretty bare bones—minimalist, Natasha teased, though he wasn’t sure why that was funny—aside from the leafy green plants scattered wherever the sun would reach. Bucky pointed out the bathroom even though he knew Sam knew where it was. 

He padded into his bedroom and chucked his uniform in the vague direction of the hamper before pulling clean clothes out of his closet. He changed quickly, willing his mind to stay blank, then walked out into the kitchen. He pulled two water bottles from the fridge before collapsing into the couch.

Light spilled from the window across from him and he let his head tilt back, closing his eyes and taking in the warmth and the sound of the shower spray. The shower squeaked off a few minutes later and Bucky didn’t yet move as the door opened. Another minute and Sam was dropping down beside him in a suspiciously familiar pair of sweatpants.

“Fuckin’ theif,” Bucky said as he pressed one of the water bottles into his hands. Sam chuckled as he took it from him. 

“I was hoping for something a little stronger than this, man.” 

Bucky made a point of taking a long pull from his own bottle before speaking. “Water first. Then, alcohol.”

“And a lot of it.” Sam saluted with the bottle and downed half of it in one go before coming back up for air.

They sat again in silence, sipping on their water. Bucky could nearly hear the thoughts swirling in Sam’s mind but had no idea what to say. As often as they bickered, they’d found a friendship that could exist with few words, but he had a feeling Sam needed to talk through things more often than he did, this being one of those times.

Christ, Steve was better at this than he was. But Steve hadn’t been there, and Steve wasn’t here now, so that left Bucky.

“You did a really good job with him,” he said, and Sam looked over at him. “Peter, I mean.”

“Wasn’t a whole lot I could do,” Sam said, frowning. “A lot of the damage was internal. I just tried to keep him stable until we got him to the med team.”

“I meant like—” He waved his hand vaguely in the air. “—keeping him calm. Making him feel better. Just talking to him.”

“I don’t know how much good that really did.”

“Plenty,” Bucky argued. “Kid must’ve been scared, but you helped him. That means something, Sam.”

Sam didn’t say anything immediately, seeming to think it over. He huffed, shifting in his seat to better face the window, and stared ahead into space. Bucky bit down on his frustration, and the worry he’d said something wrong, and just waited.

“He didn’t cry,” Sam said after a moment. “I’ve seen grown men bawl like babies after getting injured, but this kid didn’t cry at all.”

“He’s a tough sonuvabitch.”

“Yeah, but he shouldn’t have to be, Buck, y’know? I—” He shook his head. “I don’t even know.”

“No, I get it.” Bucky finished off his water and leaned forward to set the bottle on the coffee table, settling with his elbows on his knees. “A kid shouldn’t be fightin’ our fights.”

“But it’s not even just  _ our  _ fights. The guy goes out looking for trouble every damn night. He should be doing his homework, for crying out loud, but instead he’s spending his time taking down bad guys and he’s so used to gettin’ hit that he doesn’t even cry when he nearly fuckin’  _ dies.” _

Sam’s fingers were bunched tight around the fabric of the borrowed sweatpants, his knuckles turned white, and Bucky put his arm around the back of the couch so he could put his hand on Sam’s shoulder without making a big deal of it.

“I know, man,” he said. “I know. It ain’t fair. But he ain’t dead.” He squeezed his shoulder and Sam let out a harsh breath, relaxing just a hair.

“If I’d known he was so young, I never would have let him get so close to those things.”

“Maybe that was the point,” Bucky said. “He wanted to prove himself without us worryin’ over him.”

“Yeah, and we all see how that turned out.” Sam scrubbed a hand down his face. “I would’ve told him to go home if I’d known, superpowers be damned. And on one hand, that means I’d never have gotten the chance to get to know him, and he’s a real great kid. But on the other, he wouldn’t be hurt right now.”

“He wouldn’t have listened to you,” Bucky said, squeezing Sam’s shoulder again. “He would’ve thrown himself in anyway but wouldn’t have had back up.” Sam groaned and let his head fall back.

“Yeah, you’re right. Stubborn little punk.”

Bucky laughed and it felt as genuine as it could be, under the circumstances. “And I thought Stevie was bad. At least  _ he  _ had more sense than to fight giant robots.”

“You get a lot of giant robots back in the forties?”

“Metaphorically.”

Sam smacked him in the arm, rolling his eyes. “Shut up, man. You don’t make any damn sense.”

“You tellin’ me you’re an expert on robot metaphors?”

“I’m an expert in bullshit, is what I am, and you’re full of it.” Sam pushed himself to his feet and held a hand out to Bucky. “C’mon, old man, we’d better get up there. I don’t wanna miss whatever explanation Stark has for adding a teenager to our ranks.” Bucky took the offered hand and let himself be hauled to his feet.

“Right behind you, pal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all i need ideas for oneshots so feel free to send spidey prompts to me over at peteyprker.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> always happy to talk over on [tumblr](www.peteyprker.tumblr.com)!


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